Saturday, October 22, 2011

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22 - Movie 2



In Revenge of the Creature (1955) a second expedition to the Black Lagoon results in the capture of the creature, who is transferred to an aquarium in Florida, put on display for the public and studied and experimented with by scientists until he's finally had enough, breaks free and escapes. Somehow he tracks the female scientist to the motel she's staying at and kidnaps her before being hunted down.

This movie loses the adventurous nature of the first, trading it in for yet another take on poor monster subjected to captivity then escaping and going on a rampage plot introduced way back in The Lost World (1925) and made famous with King Kong (1933). The monster is sympathetic, but the human characters don't have enough to them for us to care about them much, or loathe them as selfish and cruel, either. It's still a pretty fun movie, but not in the same league as the original. It simply feels too small.

The creature's costume was slightly redesigned for this movie, appearing darker, fiercer, and less elegant and advanced. The goggle eyes detract from the look of the monster's intelligence, and life-like appearance and there are some flaws with the suit such as a headpiece that leaks streams of air bubbles underwater, and hands that often appear like big oven mitts with the claws facing every direction. These flaws only draw attention to this being a costume and not a living, breathing creature, such as the gillman appeared to be in the earlier film.


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